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Opposition to EU accession rises in Iceland

A new poll suggests that opponents of membership in the European Union are gaining ground in Iceland, which applied for membership only last month.

According to a poll published today (5 August) in Morgunbladid, Iceland’s biggest daily, 48.5% of Icelanders oppose entering the EU, up 10 percentage points since the same poll was conducted three months ago.

Just over one-third of those polled – 34.7% – supported membership.

At the same time, the share of undecided Icelanders dropped from 22.4% this spring to 16.9%.

The poll indicates that Iceland’s voters will follow membership negotiations, expected to start early next year, very closely.

It also suggests that the Icelandic government faces an increasingly tough challenge to convince the country’s 320,000 people to vote for accession in the referendum that will follow the completion of negotiations.

Fisheries policy is likely to be among the toughest areas for the two sides. Fishing is the island’s leading industry and the rules governing it are very different from those in the EU.